Personal and Possessive Pronouns

1. Personal and Possessive Pronouns 6-1 P. 298

2. Personal Pronouns • You can replace nouns with pronouns to make your speaking and writing flow more smoothly. • Bob went inside. • He went inside.

3. Pronouns such as they and them are called personal pronouns. Personal pronouns have different forms to show person, number, and gender. • Personal pronouns show person. • A pronoun in the first person shows who is speaking. • A pronoun in the second person shows who is being spoken to. • A pronoun in the third person shows who or what is being spoken about. • First Person- I want to go to the library tomorrow. • Second Person- Do you have any books to return. • Third Person- She returned them yesterday.

4. Personal pronouns also show number. • Singular pronouns refer to one person or thing. • Plural pronouns refer to more than one. • Singular- He choose three books. • Plural- They worked on the class report.

5. Third person singular pronouns show gender. • She and her are feminine. • He and him are masculine. • It is neuter. • Feminine- Ask Annie what she thinks about that topic. • Masculine- Rob says he found a useful book. • Neuter- The book has two chapters about it.

7. What are the person and number of each underlined pronoun? Is each third person singular pronoun masculine, feminine, or neuter. • Sharon and I work with her. • We collect plastic containers on Saturdays. • Do all of you know that plastic is a valuable product? • When it is recycled, energy is saved. • If people knew that, they wouldn’t throw milk jugs away.

8. Possessive Pronouns • You have learned that possessive nouns show ownership. You can use possessive pronouns to replace possessive nouns. • Ben’s book is biography. • His book is a biography.

10. Most possessive pronouns have two forms for each person. • One form describes a noun, as an adjective does. Use my, your, his, her, its, our and their before nouns. • The pronouns mine, yours, his, hers, ours, and theirs are used alone. • Used before a noun • That book is not my book. • Used alone • That book is not mine.

11. Do not confuse possessive pronouns and contractions. A possessive pronoun never has an apostrophe.

12. What possessive pronoun completes each sentence pair? • 6. She and he bought a new book. It is ___________. • 7. That poem is by Emily Dickinson. It is _________ poem. • 8. That poem is by Emily Dickinson. The poem is ____________ . • 9. This one is by Robert Frost. The poem is _______________.

13. What is the correct form to complete each sentence? • 10. Can this possibly be (you’re, your) signature? • 11. The envelope is missing (it’s, its) contents. • 12. Have they picked up (they’re, their) mail yet?

14. Write the correct pronoun for each sentence pair. • 13. In 1812 we lost the library. ________ nations library burned. • 14. Thomas Jefferson helped. He sold __________ books. • 15. There were about 7,000 items. _________ filled the library.